The Standpipe Hotel – SA Weekend restaurant review

Mixing classic northern Indian fare and modern Australian cooking, this restaurant offers a double-banger menu that’s worth the change in route.

Outside the Standpipe Hotel, Port Augusta. Picture: Supplied

Port Augusta is South Australia’s great crossroads city. To the west, is the Eyre, The Bight and beyond. Roads north head either to Woomera, Coober Pedy and up to Alice, or Wilpena and Lake Eyre. East is Broken Hill. South follows the Gulf down to Adelaide and the cooler climes beyond.

It is also a cultural crossroads, at any one time a gathering point for the diverse local population as well as a mix of travellers from grey nomads to truckies and roadwork crews.

All seem to be well represented during dinner at the Standpipe Hotel, a regional powerhouse that is full of surprises.

The story of the hotel and its remarkable owner, Dr Devinder Singh Grewal, could easily fill this column and a few others on its own.

Dr Grewal comes from Punjab in northern India and, after migrating to Australia in 1971, settled in the small town of Quorn with his wife, Surinder. Three years later, they shifted to Port Augusta and then, in 1983, bought the Standpipe, a business they saw as both an investment and a home. Over the past 40 years, at the same time as delivering babies and treating illnesses as a distinguished local GP, the doctor has worked with his family to expand and update the hotel and surrounds, growing the original 15 rooms to more than 80 spread alongside a golf course in the town’s west.

The historic building at the heart of the property, however, goes back much further than this, to the days of camel trains and bold adventurers, when it was the final watering spot before heading into the arid interior.

The dining room at The Standpipe Hotel, Port Augusta. Picture: Supplied

This is where you will find the Standpipe’s restaurant, in a series of rooms that retain the period charm of archways and sash windows, flowing through to a newer extension.

It seems a daunting space to fill but, on this Saturday night, with a tour group on site and a few larger celebrations, few of the 180-plus seats remain empty. Part of the attraction, no doubt, is a double-banger menu that tries its damnedest to please everyone. The quartet at the adjacent table, for instance, have penne bolognese, battered gar and schnitzel, part of the pub-style “Modern Australian” selection. But given the heritage of the owners, and recommendations from a few well-informed sources, it is the North Indian food that has caused us to break our drive home from the Eyre Peninsula.

On the face of it, this part of the menu follows a familiar path. Starters, for instance, include samosa and onion bhaji. The pakoras are round fritters of finely ground veg bound in a chickpea batter with a touch of chilli that lurks in the shadows until the end.

Punjab crumbed prawns aren’t, I suspect, kings from local waters but their meat is still plump and firm in a light coating with more deft spicing. Even the bright green yoghurt dressing has true mint flavour and a nice line of heat.

Selection of curries at The Standpipe Hotel, Port Augusta Picture: Supplied

Selection of curries The Standpipe Hotel, Port Augusta Picture: Supplied

The curries, served in simple white bowls, show a kitchen that puts more work into its pastes and cooking procedures than any elaborate presentation. The enticing smokiness and char of tandoor-roasted thigh chunks stands out in the butter chicken, as does the balance of the sauce.

Slow-cooked cubes of Spear Creek saltbush Dorper lamb are hard to distinguish from the regular stuff but still work well in the tomato-based bhuna gosht. Dal makhani benefits from the bite of still-intact lentils and has a lovely tang. The only disappointment is a Goan fish curry that is made with fairly ordinary pieces of orange roughy and lacks any obvious complexity from the promised curry leaves.

Our neighbours have finished up with ice-cream sundaes but, for us, it is India’s own frozen dessert, kulfi, a moulded confection given extra body with ground pistachios and, in this case, the addition of mango.

Mango kulfi at The Standpipe Hotel, Port Augusta Picture: Supplied

Given the numbers it is feeding, the Standpipe manages to be both welcoming and supremely organised. Not a restaurant you would travel vast distances just to eat at, perhaps. But still very happy that it is there.